Overview of Online Virus Scanners

Martin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:54:45 +0000

Scanning the computer from an online location provides several advantages over the classic local scan. The most prominent one is that the risk of a virus infection of the virus scanner is not present and that the engine used by the scanner is usually up to date. A local virus scanner needs to be updated regularly to stay effective.

An Internet connection is needed on the other hand to perform the scan which sometimes can be a problem if the system is not booting into the operating system. A Live CD could help but many Online Virus Scanners demand the Internet Explorer which is obviously unavailable on Linux systems.

Online Virus Scanners can be used to get a “second opinion” without having to install another anti-virus software on the computer. It is probably a good idea to use as many of the virus scanners as possible if it is suspected that the system was infected by a virus. Below is a list of services that provide access to online virus scanners.

Bitdefender Online Scanner – requires Internet Explorer 4+

Eset Online Scanner – requires Internet Explorer

F-Secure Online Scanner – works only with Internet Explorer 6+

Kaspersky Free Virus Scan – browser independent, downloads roughly 25 Megabytes of files prior to scanning. User can select locations to scan. The scanner does not remove infected files.

McAfee FreeScan – requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5+

Microsoft OneCare Live – requires Internet Explorer.

Panda ActiveScan – requires Internet Explorer or Firefox, does not run in Opera.

Shields Up! – browser independent but very slow and unresponsive currently.

Symantec Security Check – down or gone.

Trendsecure HouseCall – Java based scanner, works with Java compatible browsers.

Windows Security – Trojan scan that requires Internet Explorer 5+

File Scanners:

Avast Online Scanner – file size limit of 512 Kilobyte

Virus Scan – file size limit of 10 Megabyte.

Virus Total – email upload option, 10 Megabyte file size limit.

Do you know any other services where users can scan files or the computer ?

Tags: malicious software, online scanner, online virus scanners, trojan, virus, virus scanners

Virus Total Uploader

Martin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:52:53 +0000

Virus Total is one of the many services that let you upload files to their server which are then scanned for viruses and malware. One major advantage of Virus Total over a single antivirus solution installed on the user’s pc is the fact that it uses almost every known antivirus engine to scan the files which could not be done on a single system because those applications would surely interfere with each other.

The guys from Virus Total have created a file uploader that makes the whole process comfortable. The 80 Kilobyte application installs itself in the right-click context menu as a Send To entry which in effect means that you can right-click a file on your computer and select Send To > Virus Total to send it to their website to scan the file.

A browser window will open displaying the scan results in the end. This is way more comfortable than to open the Virus Total website and browse for the file on your hard drive once you are there.

The file size limitation of ten Megabytes is still in place however. Another option that you might want to explore is to send them files by email [scan@virustotal.com]. A report is send to the email address that you have used to send the file.

Tags: antivirus, online scanner, virus total, virus-scanner

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Overview of Online Virus Scanners

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